Madras High Court stays order directing Junior Vikatan top brass to pay ₹25 lakh compensation to DMK MP T.R. Baalu in defamation suit

A Division Bench of the Madras High Court, on Monday (September 8, 2025), stayed a single judge’s order directing the Editor, Publisher and Printer of Tamil magazine Junior Vikatan to pay a compensation of ₹25 lakh to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP T.R. Baalu for having attributed to him a speech that he never made against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Justices S.M. Subramaniam and C. Saravanan granted the interim stay following an appeal filed by the magazine against the decree passed by the single judge on February 4, 2025 in a 2014 defamation suit. The single judge had partly decreed the suit after being convinced that an article published by the magazine in 2013 was per se defamatory and malicious. HC frames issues in suit filed by M.K. Stalin in 2019 against Ananda Vikatan publications

The single judge had held Mr. Baalu would be entitled to be compensated by Vasan Publications Private Limited and directed the Editor R. Kannan, Publisher K. Ashokan and Printer S. Madhavan to pay the compensation amount within a month. Hence, all three of them had jointly filed the present appeal challenging the single judge’s order on various grounds.

Though the politician had filed the 2014 suit complaining about a 2012 publication too, the judge had held it would be barred by limitation since the suit was not filed within one year of that publication. The judge had taken serious note of only the December 22, 2013 publication attributing certain statements to have been made by Mr. Baalu against Mr. Gandhi in DMK’s closed door general body meeting held on December 15, 2013. A cartoon that landed the Editor of Ananda Vikatan in jail in 1987

After analysing the evidence presented by both sides and the testimonies of the witnesses, the single judge had concluded that the 2013 publication was made “without proper verification or confirming the veracity of the news and with a calculated intention of defaming the plaintiff.” He said, the publication had been made purely out of ill will and to tarnish the image of the former Union Minister.

Though the plaintiff had sought damages to the tune of ₹1 crore along with 18% interest from the date of filing of the suit, the judge had decreed the suit only to the extent of ₹25 lakh and had also refused to grant a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from making future publications regarding the subject matter.